Original Date Sent: November 7, 2011
Sent to: The usual group.
Context: This one is a perfect example of my attitude toward these emails. One of my brothers (biological brothers...not one of the "bro's") had gotten into Japanese wrestling. He liked what he saw, but he said something along the lines of how he enjoyed the New Japan Junior Heavyweights and what matches would I recommend. Well...that of course got my wheels spinning. "I should write an email about that!" However, to explain what made the NJPW Jr.'s so special, I would have to go into the history of how the style developed AND the influence it had on later forms of Professional Wrestling. Well, I got so deep down that rabbit hole that I decided to scrap the initial idea and just write about the different Pro Wrestling styles. So I picked out 12...and then it went to 16...and then it further inflated to 20. This is the result.
If you are receiving this email, it means your spam filter is broken. I suggest you fix it. In the mean time, here is what is likely (okay, definitely) the dorkiest email yet. And probably the longest. Not the longest yet, but the longest that I will ever write. This thing may crash your phone. So hold onto your hats and get ready for the...
PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING STYLES PRIMER
For most, Pro Wrestling is just a fake fight between two freakishly big men. But it's so much more than that! There are several different permutations of how people can fake fight each other. This is a rough guide to navigating the myriad styles of pro wrestling throughout the world.
WWE Main Event Style
Main Practitioners: Hulk Hogan, The Undertaker, Stone Cold Steve Austin, HHH, John Cena
This is what most people think of when they think of pro wrestling. It's very basic "work the crowd, good guy vs. bad guy" formula has been going strong for over three decades now and shows no signs of stopping. When French philosopher Roland Barthes wrote about Professional Wrestling in the 50s, he posited that people reacted so strongly to the in-ring actions because wrestling appealed to their sense of justice. The bad guy did something to knock the universe for a loop and the good guy beat him up to correct it. It's the most basic of human theater. And it's also made WWE into one of the world's foremost entertainment enterprises. Sure, Hulk Hogan isn't one of the greatest in-ring performers in the world. But WWE Main Event style is about connecting to the fans on a more primal level. Don't you love America? So does Hulk Hogan! Boss giving you problems? Live vicariously through Stone Cold! Is your penchant for spitting water in the air frowned upon by society? HHH has no such problem. These matches have no problem with guys recovering from injuries faster than Wolverine, copious amounts of interference, and ridiculous stipulations. This is also a style that is very good at concealing the weaknesses of limited workers. Ironically enough, one of the prime examples of this type of style is Goldberg when he ran roughshod over WCW. And yet when he came over to WWE they were just never able to recapture the momentum that he had during his initial WCW run.
Hallmark Matches:
The Rock vs. Hulk Hogan (WWE, Wrestlemania 18): A perfect example. Barely anything happens, but the crowd is absolutely rabid for the faceoff between two legends. Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUrxFzynrjs&feature=fvst
Triple H vs. Undertaker (WWE, Wrestlemania 17): From the best Wrestlemania ever. This was from Undertaker's ridiculous Biker period. This was just before HHH became the most hated man on the internet. Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q8-rNkbx_c&feature=related
Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant (WWE, Wrestlemania 3): Again, there's not much to the match if you're watching it in a vacuum. Fortunately it's not in a vacuum, it's in front of 93,000 fans. Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPM6Wplm3iM
Southern Style
Main Practitioners: Ric Flair, Harley Race, Dusty Rhodes
The rival form of WWE Main event style in America. The Southern Style is also about building crowd heat and making an emotional connection with the fans (this will be a familiar refrain). But the contrast comes in the personalities. WWE has long been criticized for being a human cartoon with broad gimmicks and outsized personalities. The NWA (the one without Dr. Dre) and later WCW featured characters that were slightly more true to life. As ridiculous as Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes were, they still were grounded in some kind of reality (and yes, I'm aware of the epic awfulness of a lot of WCW's characters in their later years. But to their credit, they usually kept these guys away from the main event). The matches themselves are usually based around the bad guy picking out a body part and just going to work on it. The good guy then either overcomes the odds and makes a big comeback or the bad guy decimates him and leaves him crippled on the mat. The best example is Ric Flair working over his opponent's leg as a set-up for the Figure Four leglock. Another good example is Harley Race punching his opponent in the face until said opponent no longer has a face. The enduring legacy of Southern Style matches is that the tag format is used in pretty much every tag match on this continent to this very day (match starts even with the good guys frustrating the bad guys, bad guys cut off one of the good guys and work him over for a long time (called the "Face in Peril" segment), good guy finally tags in his partner and all hell breaks loose). Trust me, watch any tag match in the last twenty years and it will probably have this format.
Hallmark Matches:
Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat (NWA, Chi-Town Rumble): You could pick any of the three high profile matches these two had in 1989. I picked this one because I was able to find it on youtube. Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDRlJFWvEfY
Dusty Rhodes vs. Harley Race (NWA): Just the finish to the match. But you get an idea of how the crowd reacted differently to what these guys were doing than to what the WWE was doing up North. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H99R1QcgbVw
Midnight Express vs. Rock n Roll Express (NWA): This match has the raddest collection of mullets you'll ever see. And it's a great application of the Southern Tag formula by the teams that perfected it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2Z2OkpvpF0
Memphis Style
Main Practitioners: Jerry "The King" Lawler, Randy Savage, Junkyard Dog
Memphis has long been a hotbed of pro wrestling, peaking from a pop culture standpoint as the location of the famous Andy Kaufman vs. Jerry Lawler matches (which actually went on way longer than people realize. I saw a special on it once when I was a kid and it looked like the most awesome thing ever and included Kaufman making peace with Lawler only to betray him later on). The Memphis Style is a precursor to the WWE Main Event style, but with more punching, more interference, and more race baiting. Back in the late 90's, WWE would send their young guys to Memphis to learn that style because it translated so easily to what they did at the top level. I'm not sure that I've ever seen a top-level Memphis match that had a clean finish (that is, an ending without outside interference, cheating, a referee error, or some other shenanigans). Also, if you take a piledriver (Lawler's finishing move) in Memphis, you're dead. You won't appear on TV or at a live show for another month. If you go out to lunch without a neck brace on during that time period, you won't be welcome back in Tennessee for the rest of your life. Certain territories have built up moves like that in the past (Kobashi's Burning Hammer, Hogan's Leg Drop, etc.), but nothing like the piledriver in Memphis (again, Andy Kaufman gets mucho points here for doing his broken neck bit on Letterman).
Hallmark Matches:
Tommy Rich vs. Jerry Lawler (CWA): Typical Memphis. Tons of punches, some blood, and a lot of extracurricular activity. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuYx_R6te3c
Jerry Lawler & Randy Savage vs. King Kong Bundy & Rick Rude (CWA, No DQ): Worth clicking on just for Randy Savage continually walking in front of Jerry Lawler while Lawler is giving an interview before the match. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g_wr21Gp3w
Bonus Clip: Andy Kaufman and Jerry Lawler face off on Letterman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSn-pvZopns
Stampede Style
Main Practitioners: Bret Hart, Owen Hart, Chris Benoit
Basically, this is the style of the Hart Family and the people that trained in the Hart family dungeon (seriously, they called it a dungeon). The name comes from the Canadian wrestling promotion run by the Harts, Stampede Wrestling. For lack of a better definition, this is what Bret Hart used to do. Technical wrestling, exuding professionalism, and having your character be best described as "Serious Professional Wrestler." These guys tend to be from Western Canada, know every move in the book, and have traveled the world twice over before heading to the big leagues. If you're like me, you consider the most appealing part of wrestling to be how the participants tell a story in the ring. If the Stampede guys were a movie, they would be an intense docudrama. If you've ever seen the movie Hunger (about the hunger strike in prison by IRA member Bobby Sands (played here by Michael Fassbender)), you'll remember a scene where all the imprisoned IRA guys dump their piss into the hall (spoiler alert!). This is followed by a very long drawn out scene where a janitor mops up the piss. All of it. Down the whole hallway. In one unbroken shot that goes on for a long, long time. That's sort of like Stampede. It's wrestling in perhaps its most pure form. It is art imitating life. Real life, in all its disappointment and casual horror. This is how, we imagine, George Hackenschmidt and Frank Gotch would wrestle in front of 30,000 fans at the Comiskey Park in 1911. I don't want it to sound boring. It's really not. But there is certainly a refusal to resort to over-the-top theatrics.
Hallmark Matches:
Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart (WWE, Wrestlemania X): A bitter brother vs. brother battle. Like a Canadian Civil War. One of the great wrestling matches to take place on this Earth. Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbZL56QEgcE
Bret Hart vs. Chris Benoit (WCW, Owen Hart Tribute Show): In a raw, emotional moment in Bret's life, he turned to wrestling and delivered one of his greatest, and yet still somehow cold and stoic, performances. Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJCtJyKdy4w
Lucha Libre
Main Practitioners: El Hijo Del Santo, Negro Casas, Atlantis
One of the most misunderstood forms of wrestling. The common conception, even among most wrestling fans, is that Lucha is mostly short skinny guys who wear masks and flip around a lot. This is true to a certain degree. Lucha tends to be much more democratic in terms of who is able to succeed and move up to the top spots, so there is less emphasis on height/weight perfectionism. And yes, masks are a big part of the Lucha tradition. And sure, there's quite a bit of flipping around. But what most people think of as Lucha is embodied by Rey Mysterio Jr., Juventud Guerrera, and Psychosis due to their work in ECW, WCW, and later WWE. But these guys are kind of a style in and of themselves and are much more synonymous with the WCW Cruiserweight style that developed in the mid-90s (we'll get to that later). Lucha Libre is probably the most ceremonial of the wrestling forms. Watching it for the first time is a totally foreign experience (and not because of the language barrier. Japanese wrestling translates pretty easily). It is full of weird submission holds, guys getting knocked out seemingly out of nowhere, and stuff that looks way more choreographed than what you would normally see on American television. But once you're used to the nuances, there are very few things more compelling. Mask ripping, blood, twisting a guy apart until it seems like his limbs will fall off...it's all part of high profile Lucha Libre matches.
Hallmark Matches:
The Torneo Cibernetico (EMLL): Unfortunately, I can't find the legendary 1997 one on youtube. It featured some of the greatest luchadores ever in a 16 man elimination tag match that features some of the most freaked out stuff I've ever seen. It's worth scouring the internet to see it, if you're into that kind of thing.
Atlantis vs. Villano III (CMLL, Mask vs. Mask): The Mask vs. Mask match is always a violent, emotional affair and this is no exception. It was unthinkable for either guy to lose his mask at this stage, which makes the crowd all the more crazy for every near fall. Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVETCPDjDj4
Eddie Guerrero & "Love Machine" Art Barr vs. Octagon & El Hijo Del Santo (AAA, When Worlds Collide): The famous Masks vs. Hair match that made Eddie an international superstar, forever colored the reputation of the late Art Barr, allowed Santo to emerge from his father's massive shadow, and, umm, Octagon was there too. Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KJ3jqqVRBs
Puerto Rican Lucha Libre
Main Practitioners: Carlos Colon, Bruiser Brody, Abdullah the Butcher
This is deeper down the rabbit hole than even I like to go. But from my experience, these matches are bloody as hell. And even then they're barely able to satiate the rabid San Juan crowds. This is actually much closer to Memphis style than traditional Lucha Libre (at least from what I've seen). Carlos Colon, the legendary figure of the style, has a forehead even more scarred and jagged than that of The Necrobutcher (more to come on him). Puerto Rico is also where a lot of the crazy guys of the 70s and 80s achieved their greatest fame (such as Abdullah the Butcher and Bruiser Brody). I'm pretty sure Atsushi Onita did a bunch of exploding cage matches there too. Unfortunately, Puerto Rican wrestling's association with violence got all too real when Bruiser Brody was stabbed to death during a backstage altercation with another wrestler (who was found Not Guilty in controversial fashion. He's wrestling's OJ).
Hallmark Matches:
Carlos Colon & Abdullah the Butcher vs. Bruiser Brody & Stan Hansen (WWC, Lumberjack Match): As I said before, I'm not all that well versed in this type of wrestling. But this gives you the feel of what they were doing, especially after the match moves outside of the ring. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9glzWkFUt1g
European/British Style
Main Practitioners: Dynamite Kid, Mark "Rollerball" Rocco, Claudio Castagnoli
The British Bulldog, despite the name, is not at all an example of British wrestling as a style. In fact, despite marrying into the Hart family, he's not really even a Stampede type guy. Rather, he is a purveyor of the WWE Main Event Style that never quite made it to the main event (call it the Intercontinental style, if you like). Real British wrestling is wacky as hell, especially the early 80s World of Sport type stuff. It had rounds. Rounds! Like, they would take breaks in the middle of the match and stuff because the round was over. It seems odd to me that the sports that the Brits are so enamored with, soccer (sorry, Association Football) and rugby, are free-flowing sports with few stoppages compared to their American counterparts. And yet their wrestling (at least back then) is full of stops and starts and has a disjointed feel. Another hallmark of British Wrestling (and European wrestling in general) is that a lot of the holds and counterholds appear as if they're from another planet. For instance, the way that an American (or Mexican, or Canadian, or Japanese...) wrestler gets out of headlock is pretty standard. The way someone like Johnny Saint gets out of a headlock involves a twelve step process that involves stepping over his opponent twice and spinning around in a circle. It's weird and seems counter-intuitive at first, but it's a lot of fun when you get used to it. Oh, and before I forget, Mark Rocco probably has the best nickname ever. If I were about ten thousand times cooler I would insist on being called Mike "Rollerball" Coast. Actually, I wouldn't need to insist. It would just happen.
Hallmark Matches:
Dynamite Kid vs. Mark Rocco (World of Sport): In addition to being an awesome match, this is just so odd to watch. Half the people in the audience look like college professors. If you like this, youtube is chock full of World of Sport stuff. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb_beuE76aA
Johnny Saint vs. Jim Breaks (World of Sport): The previous match looks as if it could have been contested on the planet Earth. This one does not. Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZpjqD_E71I
Puroresu
For most emailers, speaking about Japanese wrestling in general terms is good enough. But I've decided to break it down into several more categories. Oh, and if you're wondering about the odd name, it's short for "purofesshonaru resuringu" which is the Japanese pronunciation for Professional Wrestling. Fact of the Day! (not to steal Downtown Nick Brown's thunder)
Strong Style
Main Practitioners: Antonio Inoki, Shinya Hashimoto, Masa Chono, Keiji Mutoh
Strong Style is similar to modern MMA without all the terrible tattoos. In fact, a lot of the guys either came from or would go on to legitimate martial arts competitions. But the thing about simulated MMA is that there's an incredibly high degree of difficulty in pulling it off. Every strike has to look devastating, every submission hold cinched in for maximum effect. If not, the illusion immediately falls apart. Wrestling is all about suspension of disbelief, but Strong Style posits that wrestling is a sport (rather than entertainment or physical theater) and should be watched as such. There is no winking or nods to the audience. This shit is real and Strong Style dares you to say it isn't. The flaw, to me, if that MMA is fairly dull when the matches are long, drawn out affairs. It's much better (for me, anyway) when there are sudden, unexpected bursts of violence. But if a matched is pre-planned, it's hard to have those bursts of violence be truly convincing. But, to their credit, these guys are able to pull it off. And when they do, there are few things better. Oh, and it's not really that close to MMA in how it looks. It's still clearly pro wrestling. It's the mindset I'm talking about really.
Hallmark Matches:
Tatsumi Fujinami & Keiji Mutoh vs. Akira Maeda & Yoshiaki Fujiwara (NJPW): A perfect example of the mindset and structure that I'm talking about. It's about ten minutes of real wrestling moves and submission holds with a finish full of kicks and suplexes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZcVJV-hz4c&feature=related
Masa Chono vs. Keiji Mutoh (NJPW, G-1 Climax): The pinnacle of the style and one of the few times the NJPW heavyweights could look across town at All Japan and say that our guys are as good as your guys. It's sort of like how Donovan's "Season of the Witch" is as good as anything Bob Dylan ever did, but Donovan is still dismissed offhand as being the guy who tried to be Dylan but failed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-wC_Im7Qfo
Hiroshi Hase & Kensuke Sasaki vs. The Steiner Brothers (NJPW/WCW, Starcade '91): One of the great things about the bizarre WCW/NJPW alliance is that you got ridiculous pairings like this. Kensuke, arguably the wea link in this match, would eventually grow into one of the most badass guys in the next style when he hit his forties and switched promotions. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKrAm-hyYtM
King's Road
Main Practitioners: Jumbo Tsuruta, Mitsuharu Misawa, Toshiaki Kawada, Kenta Kobashi
King's Road is the 700 page novel of the wrestling world. The whole point of these matches is to tell a deep story with several layers of nuance in the ring. This is as close as pro wrestling gets to being performance art (if you're one of those that doesn't already subscribe to that assertion). The top feuds on the late 80's-1999 raged on for years. Most of the time, this leads to a stale product. Especially with the WWE Main Event Style. How many times can you really watch John Cena vs. HHH? But, to contrast that, how many times could you watch Misawa vs. Kawada? The answer is endlessly. King's Road is a close cousin of Southern Style thanks to an influx of American talent into All Japan in the 80s (Terry & Dory Funk, Stan Hansen, "Dr. Death" Steve Williams). Plus, the godfather of the style, Jumbo Tsuruta, spent time travelling in the South as a young wrestler. In most American wrestling contests, the beef is usually something like "You have the title and I want it," or "I'm a brash guy and you're a brash guy and this place ain't big enough for the two of us." With King's Road, everyone is stoic. No amount of cheering or booing will change their stone visages. These matches just feel more important. You can tell that they are about failed friendships, mortality, hatred, jealousy, nationalism, and the emptiness of glory. Oh, and the matches themselves kick ass. These guys hit harder, drop people on their heads at sharper angles, and unleash more physical destruction with their bare hands than anyone else in the world of pro wrestling ever. This is the pinnacle.
Hallmark Matches:
Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Mitsuharu Misawa (AJPW): Misawa has just ditched the Tiger Mask gimmick and decides to step in the ring with the top dog of the day. A match that reverberated for the next decade. Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMpHibYk4f8
Mitsuhara Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue (AJPW): My pick for the best match of all time. Kawada at his most badass, Kobashi crying, a crowd beyond rabid for Misawa, and Taue doing his Taue things. Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoWnvDSXM7A
Mitsuhara Misawa vs. Kenta Kobashi (AJPW): I previously linked to the best of the Misawa/Kawada matches in the CM Punk email, so I decided to spread the recognition around some. This is where Kobashi transitions from plucky young lion to full-on King of the Jungle. It's not so much because of the result, but because for the first time in half a decade it feels like Misawa is the underdog. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSFkWJIuUiQ
Joshi
Main Practitioners: Manami Toyota, Aja Kong, Akira Hokuto
Another rabbit hole that I rarely venture down. Joshi is Japanese Women's wrestling. Some people don't use the term King's Road, but Royal Road instead so that they can incorporate the women of that time period as well. I've never really been comfortable watching this stuff. I'm sure there's some deep-seeded sexist reason for this, but I just find it hard to sit through. It's not because of the quality of the matches themselves. It's because these women DESTROY each other. Plus, they are more innovative move-wise than anyone else, which leads to the feeling that someone could break their neck at any time. If you watch a match today and you see a cool, unique move, chances are that it was invented by a woman in Japan.
Hallmark Matches:
Manami Toyota vs. Toshiyo Yamada (AJW, Hair vs. Hair): Like I said, this stuff is tough even for me. But this is about as well put-together a match as you'll ever see. These girls trade shots like Micky Ward and Arturo Gatti (if the traded shots originated from the top rope). Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sMla5Q3qUg
Akira Hokuto vs. Shinobu Kandori (AJW): As brutal, intense, and great a match as you'll ever see. Notice that I did not qualify that with "Women's Match." This is just flat out amazing. The ending is unexpected and yet somehow perfect. It became one of the more indelible images among the dorkiest of wrestling fans. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyxvGMJ2IBY
New Japan Juniors Style
Main Practitioners: Tiger Mask, Jushin "Thunder" Liger, Koji Kannemoto, Shinjiro Otani
Originally, I was going to do an email about the New Japan Juniors style. My brother was thinking about doing some exploring in this style, and I figured it might be worth doing a full email. But that quickly spiraled out of control. To really do it justice, I felt that I had to go into where the style came from and that involved describing all these different styles. So I decided to do this email instead (which also quickly spiraled out of control). New Japan was the home of Strong Style. The Original Tiger Mask (there have been four at this point, including the aforementioned Misawa) was no exception in the early 80s. He wrestled a hard striking, submission heavy style that focused on realism. But then he began feuds with two British wrestlers: Dynamite Kid (later of WWE's British Bulldogs) and Mark "Mike Coast's Nickname" Rocco (Wrestling under the guise of Black Tiger). As we mentioned earlier, the British wrestlers had holds and moves that seemed as if they were handed down from an alien civilization who were born with three more limbs than homo sapiens. Throw in that Dynamite also spent time in Stampede learning the Hart way of wrestling and you get an amalgamation of wrestling goodness that was completely unique to what people had seen before. Due to the incredible success of these matches, the Junior Heavyweights (defined as being under 225 lbs, but the weight classes aren't exactly as strict as those of boxing) of New Japan took up the new style and routinely outshone their heavyweight counterparts for decades. 1994 is often looked at as the peak year of Professional Wrestling. Wrestlemania X (with Bret vs. Owen and the Shawn Michaels vs. Razor Ramon ladder match), the best of the Misawa vs. Kawada matches, the AAA "When Worlds Collide" PPV (with the legendary Hair vs. Masks match I linked to in the Lucha Libre section), and Shane Douglas throwing down the NWA Title in favor of creating the ECW World Title. The NJ Juniors are no exception, peaking as a style during the Super J Cup '94 Tournament. The lineup is a who's who of international superstars that includes two future WWE Champions (Eddie "Black Tiger II" Guerrero and Chris "Family Man" Benoit). The tournament included several classic matches and is perhaps the most influential night of wrestling of all time that doesn't end in the suffix -mania.
Hallmark Matches:
Dynamite Kid vs. Tiger Mask (NJPW): This is usually rated as the best of their matches. These guys had better chemistry than Nils Bohr. Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn7QNZPYMP8
Jushin "Thunder" Liger vs. The Great Sasuke (NJPW, Super J Cup '94): Liger was the king of this period and pretty much became the definition of the style. Sasuke was an outsider and Liger gives him an appropriate welcome into New Japan. Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnzcGpYSPNQ
El Samurai vs. Koji Kanemoto (NJPW): Oh boy. Kanemoto was formerly the least popular Tiger Mask and reinvented himself as a glorious asshole. El Samurai vacillated between "much maligned" and "that guy's pretty good." So, he averages out in the "tolerable" range. These guys really took it to each other and proved they could put on a match just as good as what everyone else was doing. Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EpG8c66bUQ
Lucharesu
Main Practitioners: Ultimo Dragon, Great Sasuke, Ricky Marvin
The hybrid of Lucha and Puro that had its beginnings in New Japan but gradually matured into its own form in the latter half of the 90s. Lucharesu abandoned the pageantry of pure Lucha and the pretensions of Strong Style to form a fast-paced, exciting style that is a joy to watch when done well. I don't think it's in the rulebook or anything, but I'm pretty sure every one of these matches is required to include at least one ridiculous, life-shortening top rope dive to the floor. This style really got crazy with the establishment of the Japanese Indie Michinoku Pro. The company regularly featured crazy six, eight, and ten man tag matches that blew up the primitive internet at the time. The matches featured a loose alliance of goody-goods like Great Sasuke, Ultimo Dragon, and Super Delfin against the ridiculously balls out awesome Kaientai DX (yes, the Kaientai name (and a couple wrestlers) was later co-opted by WWE, but the DX has nothing to do with Degeneration X). KDX was beyond awesome and it's too bad they became such a joke in WWE. It's a little like watching Warren Oates putz around in Stripes when he should have been strangling John Candy and banging the two chicks. After M-Pro faded away, the style was taken to even more ridiculous levels in Toryumon and Dragon Gate and continues to blow people's minds today.
Hallmark Matches:
Kaientai DX vs. Random Michinoku Pro Guys (M-Pro, 3rd Anniversary Show): I don't mean to be dismissive of the guys across the ring as there are some fine wrestlers among them. But this is all about Kaientai DX and how awesome they are. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNqkwY4pP2Q
Crazy MAX vs. Dragon Kid & Magnum Tokyo & Ryo Saito vs. 3 other guys (Toryumon): Again, not to be dismissive, but Crazy MAX (CIMA/SUWA/Don Fuji) were like my favorite thing in wrestling when I was sixteen. I even met CIMA once at a Ring of Honor event years later. This is nine guys just doing crazy shit for your entertainment.
WCW Cruiserweight Division
Main Practitioners: Rey Mysterio Jr., Chris Jericho, Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko
Throughout the 90's, WCW had a loose relationship with New Japan. This included some talent exchanges, joint PPVs, and, most importantly, gave WCW an inside track on a lot of the hot young North American talent who were making their names in Japan at the time. WCW signed a lot of these guys (some of whom had also been lighting it up in ECW): Benoit, Guerrero, Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio, Juventud Guerrera, Psicosis, Steven Regal, Fit Finlay, Dean Malenko, and Ultimo Dragon. WCW then, like most times in their history, had no idea what to do. So they decided to just have these guys fight each other. The revived the Cruiserweight Title in 1996 and basically let these guys put on a show two nights a week. Not all these guys were in that specific division, they were all on relatively the same tier, that is, the one right below the glass ceiling that Hogan, Hall, Nash, and Flair stood on top of. The style was basically a more mainstream hybrid of what had been happening in New Japan with a couple tweaks. More emphasis was placed on matches being "a clash of styles," while it was really more the opposite. Most of the guys in the division were well versed in the various styles and this supposed "clash" was in fact the very heart of the style.
Hallmark Matches:
Eddie Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio Jr. (WCW, Halloween Havoc '97): Often considered the peak of this style. Both of these guys would go on to be World Champion in WWE (Rey multiple times). And in WCW's infinite wisdom the main event of this PPV was a 44 year old Hollywood Hogan losing in a steel cage match to a 43 year old Roddy Piper. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W28jXlmyImc
Eddie Guerrero vs. Dean Malenko (ECW, 2 out of 3 Falls): I labeled this the WCW Cruiserweight Division style because that's the most famous iteration. But many of these guys were already doing the same thing in ECW and SMW before signing on to WCW. Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzQn1pj5zhU
Blitzkrieg vs. Juventud Guerrera (WCW, Spring Stampede '99): For years, WCW had matches at this level multiple times per week. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK3KZQsFLSg
Spotfests
Main Practitioners: Rob Van Dam, Jeff Hardy, Shane McMahon
For lack of a better term, this is the style that cares little about story telling and logic and focuses on ridiculous stunts. A "spot" is a segment of a wrestling match and often has the connotation of something dangerous or high-flying. You would think that someone would eventually not catch a chair tossed at them by RVD, but it's been happening for over fifteen years now. These are sometimes derided for being shallow and needlessly ridiculous, but they are fun and certainly have their place. There are plenty of examples of guys dabbling in this, but it really did become a style in and of itself. Those ladder/TLC matches in 2000-2002 WWE have no other proper category. Sabu's Triple Jump Moonsault cannot exist in any other category. People getting excited about Shane McMahon is as illogical as any of his matches. But watching him deliver a Van Terminator to his aging father at Wrestlemania? That deserves at least a little recognition.
Hallmark Matches:
Hardy Boyz vs. Dudleys vs. Edge & Christian (WWE, Wrestlemania 17): Their second TLC match and probably the most ridiculous match this group was able to pull off. Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1qWBfy1T8g&feature=related
Rob Van Dam vs. Jerry Lynn (ECW, Hardcore Heaven '99): These guys had several matches together, most of which consist of RVD jumping around for no reason other than the fact that it's what RVD does. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEaCe83BIzA
Shane McMahon vs. Vince McMahon (WWE, Wrestlemania 17): I thought about doing the match where Kurt Angle drops Shane on top of his head while trying to throw him through glass, but Shane doing a Van Terminator is too ridiculous to pass up. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8o1shJoK54
US Indies
Main Practitioners: Bryan Danielson, Chris Hero, Samoa Joe
The tape trading generation. These guys watched all the previous stuff that came before them and then made their own amalgamations of those amalgamations. It all became very inadvertently post-modern (and if Thomas Pynchon were going to write a wrestling book, he would definitely create a subject similar to Bryan Danielson, a vegan nerd who one day dreamed of being the next William Regal). This is the generation that is just now starting to get mainstream exposure (at the head is CM Punk, who you can read my pithy thoughts on here: http://emailsihavesent.blogspot.com/2011/08/cm-punk-email.html ). The style itself is actually relatively recent in its inception. Early on, it was guys like Reckless Youth touring up and down the east coast hoping to catch the notice of one of the bigger promotions. But in 2001, both WCW and ECW folded and the indies exploded. Well, maybe not exploded. But they became the "it" place for the cutting edge wrestling fan to find new talent (much like music fans are always in search of the next hot band before they break). This ended up in a cycle that fed into itself and eventually turned guys like Punk, Danielson, Low Ki, and AJ Styles into huge names before they had ever appeared on national television.
Hallmark Matches: Unfortunately, the Indies closely guard their youtube clips since they make much of their money on tape sales. If you really want an extensive list of US Indie matches worth watching from the last decade, let me know and I'll send a different long winded email.
Hardcore
Main Practitioners: Sandman, New Jack, Balls Mahoney
Sometimes referred to as "Garbage Matches," partly due to the quality (in the eyes of the wrestling establishment (which does, in fact, exist)), partly due to all the garbage that ends up in the ring throughout the course of the match: trash cans, folding chairs, tables, etc. The Hardcore style is synonymous with ECW (though is by no means contained to ECW). Hardcore matches had been done before ECW. Plenty of old Memphis/Southern matches featured foreign objects and blood and brutality. But it never really had a name. ECW branded it "Hardcore" and then acted as if they invented it. A little like Grunge. Sure, it existed before Nirvana and Pearl Jam. But it was never really categorized or emphasized. These matches were pretty extreme at the time. But they had nothing on the next evolution.
Hallmark Matches:
Sabu vs. Sandman (ECW, Stairway to Hell): It's a ladder match where the suspended object is barbwire. Classic ECW. Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSQ1SBenJ_0
Raven & Stevie Richards vs. The Pitbulls (ECW, Double Dog Collar Match): Typically cited as one of ECW's high water marks. Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Om5fgdCRbo
Triple H vs. Cactus Jack (WWE, Royal Rumble 2000): About as violent as WWE has ever gotten (with one upcoming exception). HHH takes a lot of shit from the internet fans, but the guy was willing to go all out for this one and keeps up with Foley every step of the way. Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGasHD3Mfuw
Death Matches
Main Practitioners: Necrobutcher, the young Mick Foley, Tomoaki Honma
Remember that scene in Event Horizon? I probably don't even need to describe it. If you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about. But in case you don't, it's the scene where they finally unscramble the video tape and they see the previous crew being butchered and tortured. Well, that's kind of like the experience of watching a real Death Match for the first time. These are like the graphic horror movies of the wrestling world...but with far more blood. Like most things in the wrestling world, Death Matches were first hatched in Japan. Barbed wire had been used before, but mostly as a Boogie Man whose use signaled that the match was nearing completion. Death Matches were about using the weapons from start to finish. Barbed wire, light tubes, scissors, thumb tacks, weed whackers, fire, panes of glass...all have been used extensively in the last decade. So, if stomach turning violence is your thing, there's nothing better than watching the Necrobutcher carve up some meth addict at a fair ground in Delaware (unfortunately, I cannot find footage of this on youtube).
Hallmark Matches:
Mankind vs. The Undertaker (WWE, Hell in a Cell): If you define a deathmatch as a match where you legitimately thought one of the competitors would die, this certainly fits the bill and is by far the most high profile deathmatch of all time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJGF01k9wkg
Tomoaki Honma vs. Ryuji Yamakawa (Big Japan): Big Japan was on the cutting edge (get it?) of deathmatches and the epic Honma/Yamakawa bouts were the sleazy version of Misawa/Kawada. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l22l1SYAAh0
Divas
Main Practitioners: Trish Stratus, Lita, Kelly Kelly
"Divas" are what WWE calls their female wrestlers. Their priorities are to 1) look good, 2) be willing to demean themselves, 3) have big breasts, and Last) be competent in the ring. Pretty bleak. But believe it or not, there was a semi-golden age of Divas wrestling in WWE not too long ago. Trish Stratus went from being a fitness model who was forced to literally bark in the ring to a shockingly good female wrestler. Also on the roster was Lita, who, in addition to being really good at dating other wrestlers, could move around well in the ring. And they got to main event Raw one week. And it was really good. And then WWE remembered that they don't give a shit about women's wrestling and went back to the Divas formula. Oh well.
Hallmark Matches:
Trish Stratus vs. Lita (WWE): The aforementioned match. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buh7PLMRlLo
Comedy Wrestling
Main Practitioners: Ebessan, Colt Cabana, Buffalo Elmo
Even Greek tragedies had Satyr plays. I have no idea where these things evolved from. I just know that they exist. In Duck Soup, there's a scene where Chico and Harpo Marx get into a scrap with a lemonade vendor (actually, there might be two scenes where that happens...whatever). It goes on and on with the lemonade vendor getting increasingly frustrated. That's kind of like what happens in every Ebessan vs. Kuishinbo Kamen match. And there are a lot of them. And it's usually the two of them frustrating the hapless referee. Here in New York there is a full on comedy wrestling league with weekly shows and bi-monthly "pay-per-views." Only in wrestling could I be sitting in a comedy theater and get all worked up about Marz "The Black Planet" losing a retirement match to a guy who does a racist/homophobic Beastie Boys character.
Hallmark Matches:
Ebessan vs. Kuishinbo Kamen (Osaka Pro): I'm pretty sure these guys have wrestled each other like 300 times. Here is one of those matches. This takes place in a high school gym or something where a good chunk of the crowd is sitting on the floor. Now that's a wrestling venue! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W65MrwTqusQ
Backyard Wrestling
Main Practitioners: The weird guys you knew in high school, Insane Clown Posse fans
I got up to 19 and decided that I needed a nice round number. Backyard wrestling exists, people buy the tapes, and some of the guys have ended up being legitimate wrestlers. So, despite the WWE "Don't Try This At Home" campaign, trying it at home ended up working pretty well for guys Mick Foley, RVD, Matt & Jeff Hardy, and numerous others.
Hallmark Matches: You probably won't believe this, but my knowledge of backyard wrestling is not quite extensive.
Phew! That was exhausting. Let's put this one to bed.
If you know someone that might like to read two dozen paragraphs of pro wrestling minutiae, please feel free to forward this on.
If you'd like to read about other minutiae that interests me to a pathological degree, please visit my half-assed, seldom updated "blog" at www.emailsihavesent.blogspot.com
Mike Coast
